To really experience the forest you have to get off the trail. Go stand among the trees. Knees slightly bent, arms relaxed at the sides. Close your eyes. And feel how the forest surrounds you. “It is a living whole. A forest has a soul.”
Natascha Boudewijn (52) gets to know people about the forest as an environment in which they can ‘get out of their heads’, to stop their eternal thinking for a while. And maybe find solutions to their problems.
To experience this, she receives us at the De Horsten estate, as she usually does with participants in her forest bathing workshops. We will do some exercises and try to get in touch with nature and especially with trees. By the way, Boudewijn talks about ‘invitations’, not about exercises, ‘because then you have to do something again – and it’s not about having to, but about meeting’.
There are only a few hikers on the estate this morning. And that’s nice. Because it does feel a bit strange to stand in the woods with your eyes closed, shuffling around without saying goodbye to anyone or feeling a solid bark.
The Hague world
Until about six years ago, Boudewijn worked as an interim manager in the hectic world of The Hague for ministries and politicians. She got tired of it and started writing cookbooks and tending vegetable gardens. “I started a cooking studio and threw myself into it over-enthusiastically.” Result: “A very severe burnout. I couldn’t hold anything anymore, not even a cup. I was very gloomy, while I am naturally full of life. All I could muster was to go here. To walk.” Over here, that is the Royal Estates De Horsten near Wassenaar, a varied landscape of ancient beech trees, fresh green willows, succulent meadows and a high lilac mountain. Familiar territory for Boudewijn, she has been coming here since she was two.
“It was the middle of winter. There was no one there at all, it was cold and at one point I very consciously felt the winter sun on my skin and heard a voice. I was very rational, so I thought: now I’m completely off the track. I heard I could stop. I said to myself: I can stop. A burden has been lifted from me.”
She has been guiding people in the forest ever since. She started a company, the Shinrin-Yoku Academy, after the Japanese term for forest bathing. The interest was overwhelming. “People really want to come into contact with trees, but they don’t know how. There is crazy fear, they are afraid of being ridiculed.” Yes, she herself is experiencing that too. She has lost friends, especially in the ‘Hague interim world’. “There were people who said: that Boudewijn has become a kind of floating bitch. I don’t have that much of a problem with that.”
Tangle of life
“First, take a few deep breaths in and out, at your own pace. Just feel how you stand here, on this beautiful day. And become aware of your body.” Boudewijn invites us to experience the forest with all the senses. She asks us to listen carefully. “Now you turn on your sense of touch. Feel the breeze. Some people can taste the forest. You may want to try that by sticking out your tongue and breathing through your mouth.” If you don’t taste anything, that’s fine too, she says. Because nothing is necessary.
You can also feel the woods beneath your feet, she says. Walk very carefully over the moss, grass or dirt path that is strewn with twigs. And indeed, we become aware of the jumble of life beneath our feet. Suddenly there is that image of all those trees that, with their roots twisting around each other, together form an organism.
Then it’s time to make contact with one tree. In a leafy field with stately beech trees, Boudewijn asks to find a tree that attracts us. We are instructed – oh no, an invitation – to stand, sit or lie down, touching is also allowed. We must first introduce ourselves: are we okay with the tree, is the tree okay with us? And then we’re going to be there for a while, with our thoughts and feelings.
Does the tree communicate or is it all a projection of what we think ourselves, we ask Boudewijn afterwards. “The tree is actually a mirror to you,” she says. “You choose a tree, then you experience something that has to do with you, or something you need. Attention, understanding. If you think that tree needs attention, maybe you do too.”
For herself, the communication is very direct. “When I sit down by a tree, I really feel contact. There is a beech with a double twisted trunk here. Standing by it is like hugging a loved one. I have a lot of favorites, each tree has its own personality.”
She has the most with chestnuts and maples. “Maples have humor, they are the clowns of the forest. When you’re there, life feels very light. People who are pessimistic or gloomy, I send to a maple.” Oaks, on the other hand, “can be grumblers.” A beech is strongly connected to the earth. “When you stand by it, sometimes it’s like having weights hanging from your limbs.”
ratio
In Japan and elsewhere a lot of scientific research is being done into the beneficial effect of forest baths. Boudewijn doesn’t care much for that. “Science is that ratio again. It may sound disrespectful, but it has made me feel better, so I don’t need scientific proof.” She sees it as her task to protect nature, and she takes it seriously.
When she reads in the local newspaper that a tree is being felled somewhere, she goes there. To warn. “Then I’ll tell that tree what’s about to happen. Also to the other trees that stand there. They usually don’t mind going, but they do if it’s very rude. By ‘rings’ for example, an old-fashioned method that is still used in the dunes. Then a strip of the bark and the living layer underneath is removed around it. A tree dies such a nasty, slow death. It’s like cutting off an animal’s legs and then just letting it lie.” It often makes her very sad, she says. But if she has been to such a tree, has told it and had contact, then she can be at peace with it.